This one needed prayer...

Why pray?


It's a question that I've heard asked many times.  At one extreme, I feel my feeble mind utter it in dark moments, and then at the other it makes me close to indignant.  It can be cumbersome, boring, seemingly ineffective, or just downright impossible to do--and yet, it is essential.  It's to be basically as important as breathing in the life of a Christ follower.


We are always catching Jesus getting away to pray--and then from that moment going out to do something great.  The order is never reversed--it is always, prayer first and then action.


Look at this story from the Gospel of Mark:  Jesus (earlier in the gospel) gave all authority over evil spirits and the ability to heal to his disciples and sends them out to do those things.  So, when we get to Mark chapter 9--it is strange to see the disciples having an issue with driving out an evil spirit--since, well, they're supposed to be able to have authority over all evil spirits.  Jesus--of course--heals him, and then the disciples are asking the same question we are: "What happened Jesus?  Why couldn't we do it?"


Now, I don't know about your experience with spiritual warfare, how well you drive out evil spirits, or even what the HP level of any given Evil Spirit is.  I do know, however, if I were a disciple right now, I would be supremely confused.  I would be thinking: "Why is it that what I've done before, now all of a sudden won't work?  I go in to heal the kid, just like I've done before, and this ugly thing won't get out!"  None of the disciples around seemed to have a clue.  So, they then ask the One who would know.  They ask Jesus. 


And Jesus simply says, "This kind can come out only by prayer" (Mark 9:29).


You see, we spend so much time living in the wake of past accomplishments, and seeming evidence of our own strength.  At first, we stopped and prayed, and God directed us and gave us the strength to do whatever it was we had to do.  Then, we reached some magic quota of God power and decided that we didn't have to ask Him anymore for His presence to live.


We spend so much of our "everyday, ordinary life-- [our] sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life" (Romans 12:1 MSG) missing the fact that there are things God would have us accomplish if we would only stop and pray.  Like I said before, the order for Jesus was always prayer, then action.  When we run up against problems, hurts, frustrations, mountains, demons, and we think to ourselves "Why won't this go away?  Why can't I make that mountain move?"  our joy and trust in God gets depleted, and our promised "Abundant life in Christ" seems to be jeopardized.  


We know in this world there will be troubles, and we know that Jesus said "But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33b)  


But how often do we live like that, or pray like that?  How can we know if we don't take the time to listen?  How can we know which mountain to move, or to climb?  Maybe that mountain you're trying to move is not your mountain. Maybe God never told you to even climb that mountain in the first place--but we were just too busy scaling the mountain before we even asked.